Supervisor Moorlach exploring run for governor

County Supervisor John Moorlach, pictured here in a January meeting, says he is considering seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2014. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

County Supervisor John Moorlach confirmed this week that he considering a run for governor in 2014.

Moorlach, a Republican who was the county's elected treasurer-tax collector for 12 years before winning election to the Board of Supervisors in 2006, stressed he hasn't decided whether to run for governor but has been "calling some key people here and in Sacramento" and so far, "no one's telling me 'no.'"

Moorlach will be termed out from his Board of Supervisors seat next year. Last year, Moorlach failed to persuade his board colleagues to seek voter approval of a measure that would have extended the term limit for supervisors from two consecutive four-year terms to three. Moorlach had hoped to run for a third term in 2014, saying the complexity of the job made experience valuable.

With that possibility gone, Moorlach said he gets a lot of people asking "What are you doing next?" Some suggested he run for governor, which he said he laughed off at first. But after hearing it for "the umpteenth time, and it's getting past joking, then why don't you go ahead and look at it?" he said Thursday.

"I'm just exploring and listening and asking questions and actually having a lot of fun," he said.

Moorlach describes himself as "very realistic" about the chances of any Republican candidate in a state where Democrats hold a big advantage in voter registrations.

"We all know if (Gov.) Jerry Brown re-runs it's going to be a very difficult thing to do," he said. "But it seems Jerry would be fun to debate in that case in the fall of 2014."

Tim Donnelly, a Republican assemblyman from San Bernardino County, also has said he's exploring a run for governor. Moorlach met briefly with Donnelly during a recent working visit to Sacramento and shared that he, too, is considering a run.

In November, after Donnelly said he was forming an exploratory committee to run for governor, the Lincoln Club of Orange County, an influential Republican group, issued a statement denouncing Donnelly's views on immigration. Donnelly, a former Minuteman Project leader with Tea Party ties, tried unsuccessfully to qualify a ballot measure to repeal the California Dream Act, which allows undocumented immigrants to get state-funded college aid.

"We cannot support Republicans who continually target immigrants, who are members of our community, as scapegoats for their own political advantage," said the statement by Robert Loewen, the Lincoln Club's president.

Moorlach, who emigrated as a child with his parents from the Netherlands to Orange County, said it's not time yet to discuss his views on issues such as immigration, as that would imply he's made up his mind to run. However, he said, "I prefer some of the proposals that have been proffered by the Lincoln Club and Sen. Marco Rubio."

Last year, the Lincoln Club adopted a policy statement on immigration reform that would allow undocumented immigrants to transition to guest-worker status and a pathway to legal residency, not citizenship.

Moorlach said it will be a month or two before he makes up his mind whether to run for governor. If he does decide to go for it, the next step would be to form a campaign committee and "try to raise some significant dollars."

The blog OC Political earlier this week reported on speculation that Moorlach was looking at a run for governor.

Separately, the Board of Supervisors has narrowed its search for a new county executive officer. The CEO is the highest non-elected post in county government, overseeing 17,000 employees.

After Voice of OC reported this week, citing unidentified sources, that the supervisors were in negotiations with Santa Barbara County CEO Chandra Waller for the job, Waller notified her bosses on Santa Barbara's Board of Supervisors that she was indeed in discussions with Orange County.

Orange County's last CEO, Tom Mauk, resigned in August over his handling of sexual-abuse allegations against former OC Public Works executive Carlos Bustamante.

Bustamante has pleaded not guilty to 12 felony counts. A preliminary hearing in his case is scheduled for April.

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